The New 250kV Single Stage AMS System at CAIS, University of Georgia: Performance Comparison with a 500kV Compact Tandem Machine

A new 250kV single stage AMS accelerator (SSAMS) was installed at the Center for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia. The accelerator is intended to be used primarily for radiocarbon measurements of natural and biobased samples, while all other samples such as marine, geological, atmospheric and archaeological samples are measured on the decade-old 500kV compact tandem accelerator (CAMS). The new AMS system is equipped with a 134-cathode MC-SNICS ion source. In this article, we show the results of the tests carried out on standards and blanks and compare the performance of the new machine with that of the CAMS unit. We have also compared the stable isotope data from AMS measurements to the conventional isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IRMS) data.